


The Highborn's Ploy

by ScriptrixDraconum



Series: "Hero" Companion Piece [7]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4580883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScriptrixDraconum/pseuds/ScriptrixDraconum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nords were the worst of the lot. They were the brutes among the races of man, good for manual labor and nothing more. Nords were arguably the least intelligent of all the humans with the Redguards closing in on a close second. Imperials were not as pathetic, but only due to their quick minds when it came to economics and strategic warfare. But then, there were the Bretons, a once-hybrid race between man and mer now almost fully human except for their retainment of magical inclinations. Bretons were tolerable for this sole reason. </p><p>Bretons would be the last race of man that the Dominion would eradicate.</p><p>(Contains mild spoilers for the "Hero Series" novels.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Highborn's Ploy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluttermoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluttermoth/gifts).



> I wrote this in December 2013 and I had forgotten about it until recently. Finally, I get to post it! After re-reading it I realized that writer Fluttermoth had a lot of similar ideas about Thalmor culture, which is probably why I love her writing so much!! Anyway, I decided to gift this one-shot to her, just because. Please go read her things, they are wonderful and incredibly imaginative.

Serilian Stormbinder hated humans.

Humans were hairy. Human smelled. Humans only lived for a century (and only then if they were mages).

Nords were the worst of the lot. They were the brutes among the races of man, good for manual labor and nothing more. Nords were arguably the least intelligent of all the humans with the Redguards closing in on a close second. Imperials were not as pathetic, but only due to their quick minds when it came to economics and strategic warfare. But then, there were the Bretons, a once-hybrid race between man and mer now almost fully human except for their retainment of magical inclinations. Bretons were tolerable for this sole reason.

Bretons would be the last race of man that the Dominion would eradicate.

Serilian’s stomach twisted in knots whenever he thought of his outcast brother. Erindil somehow managed to fall in love with a Breton during his stint at the College of Winterhold. Aurielle Falko was a Conjuration student at the College; Erindil was studying Alteration, particularly to work on his Ebonyflesh spell. The pair fell for one another instantly, so said Erindil in a letter to his brother and parents. What made the matter worse was that Aurielle was carrying Erindil’s child. The pair eventually got married in the Nord way (yet another blasphemy Serilian could not stomach) and afterwards combined their surnames to be Storm-Hawk, as written in the common tongue.

The abomination that Aurielle bore Erindil was a true mix of them both. Blonde hair and slightly pointed ears like her father; round face and large, green eyes like her mother. Elodie, they called her. A Breton name. Serilian cringed when he read the news. The child would have certainly been welcomed into the ranks of the Highborn were she raised as such, but Erindil and Aurielle were bringing up the girl in a cosmopolitan world. Elodie Storm-Hawk would never be Highborn. She would never be Thalmor.

Erindil was killed quietly when he made a trip to the Thalmor Embassy in the northernmost region of Skyrim – an unfortunate accident that could not have been foreseen. Only Auri-El knows where that Giant Frostbite Spider came from….

Aurielle remained at the College until the day of her death. Though the woman was both a Breton and a mage, and therefore could have lived for about one hundred years, she bowed out after eighty-three, leaving Elodie a sixty-something year old orphan. Just a child, even in half-breed terms.

Though Serilian’s colleague Ancano had been in prime position to arrange an unfortunate accident to befall Elodie, too, the plans were never laid out by order of the First Emissary, as it was still possible for the girl to marry and mate with a pure-bred Altmer and breed the mongrel out of her line. Then the call came for Ancano to leave his position as advisor at the College at Winterhold and return to the Embassy, and Serilian was forced to leave behind his family troubles.

Serilian and the Thalmor had more important things on which to concentrate their efforts: artifacts. Ancient, secret, buried and forgotten items of celestial origin. There were five. Clairvoyance magic and more complex locator spells proved useless in finding them. The artifacts themselves resonated with magical energies so strong that they were thought to have been created by Magnus himself, and one would think this would make them easy to be tracked down. Just the opposite, in fact. But, once found, the energy was obvious to anyone standing by them. They vibrated with a life of their own. These energies thwarted the Dominion’s efforts to find the artifacts until they realized where to look. Not only were the artifacts underground, they were under locations of great power, and were located all over Nirn.

The most difficult artifact to find was in Hammerfell. The war continued there for as long as it took to retrieve it. When the artifact was safely in their possession, the treaty was written, and the Dominion left.

Last, the Dominion turned their efforts to Skyrim. The fourth artifact was easy to find after an insane member of the Synod admitted to knowing its location. Finally, the Dominion had a lead to where the fifth artifact may lie, and the lead proved accurate. Removing the artifact from the old Nordic ruin had been somewhat difficult, however, as the giant glass orb was too wide to fit through the tight, winding passages. A situation like this was why the Thalmor had inserted sleeper agents into the Psijic Order – teleportation.

All five artifacts were finally together, and study was under way on how to properly use them to their advantage.

All that the Thalmor agents in Skyrim needed now were the other dragon masks. They had several, most importantly that made of the wood from Eldergleam, but the key to truly unlocking, and changing, the past lay in the powerful mask sealed behind thick, enchanted stone.

Time was all they needed to find the other masks. And time, of course, the Thalmor had.

The world would belong to the Dominion, whether during this millennium, or the next.

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot was heavily influenced by general ideas of racism and classism, including in-game dialogue from Thalmor agents that the Nords will be eradicated, and of course there's the whole "What are the Thalmor up to?" influence from TES/Skyrim lore. We don't REALLY know what they were doing 1) with dragon masks and 2) with the Eye of Magnus, so I ran with an idea and it just worked. 
> 
> This one-shot confirms ideas thrown around by the protagonist in my main work the "Hero Series", specifically plots within the second book, "Hero by Choice". It also gives some background to one of my other original characters, Elodie. 
> 
> I don't plan on taking this one-shot any further than it is, but like I said, its ideas are woven into my series.


End file.
